


Mandate of Heaven

by tigriswolf



Series: comment_fic drabbles [86]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Anger, Gen, Growing Up, Guns, Masks, Mild Language, Reveal, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-27
Updated: 2012-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-10 21:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one’s looking out for the kids everybody’s forgotten about.  </p><p>[John Blake drabbles, mostly unconnected]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the dying of the year

**Author's Note:**

> Title: the dying of the year  
> Disclaimer: not my characters  
> Warnings: spoilers for movie  
> Pairings: none  
> Rating: PG  
> Wordcount: 210  
> Point of view: third  
> Prompt: Any, any, when they knew they were an adult

The home turns him out the day he turns eighteen (the day he’s pretty sure is his birthday, the day the system has listed, but Dad was drunk all the time, out gambling and losing every penny to his name, so John isn’t sure because they never celebrated anything). 

John’s good with computers, good with math and logic, good with rules and guidelines. He can be charming. He’s efficient. 

He finishes high-school by the skin of his teeth and gets a scholarship to college, and then he goes to the police academy. 

He’s popular, once the stigma of being a foster kid is gone. His teachers love him. His classmates laugh at his jokes and invite him to every party. 

He’s given a gun by the Gotham PD, and it’s not the first one he’s ever held. Not the first he’s ever fired. He looks down at it and remembers his father – remembers Bruce Wayne, seeing that mask, the mask he’s still wearing himself, and _knowing_. 

Batman doesn’t like guns. Everyone’s figured that out, which makes the murders he supposedly committed a bit odder. 

But. John looks down at the gun and wonders if this is what means to be grown. 

He’s twenty-three years old. 

(He’s still not sure when his birthday is.)


	2. Whose is the face in the mask?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: Whose is the face in the mask?  
> Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Phantom of the Opera   
> Warnings: implied bad things happening to children  
> Pairings: none  
> Rating: PG  
> Wordcount: 290  
> Point of view: third  
> Prompt: any, any, "I didn't grow bitter, I just grew up."

John used to make up stories about Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne was every hero ever, and he saved the world, and he always looked out for the kids everybody else forgot about. Bruce Wayne was Batman, John was sure of it, and he had most of the other kids at the home believing it, too, until Bruce Wayne actually visited one day, a model on his arm. 

He was nice, and he was funny, and he was so obviously _not Batman_ \- John’s still surprised he was the only to recognize the mask. 

John still can’t believe no one else has ever seen through it. 

.

John knows what his colleagues and superiors believe about him. He’s naïve. He’s idealistic. He’ll be chewed up and spit out by the system that failed him once before. 

He smiles at them. He follows orders. He’s a good cop, with a bright future. Hell, one day he might even be commissioner, if he doesn’t die first. 

John is not naïve. He’s sure as fuck not idealistic. 

No one’s looking out for the kids everybody else forgot about. So he will. 

.

Bruce Wayne was Batman. 

Batman died a hero.

John stands in the cave as it lights up, and he knows no one he used to know will believe this.

.

John used to make up epics about Bruce Wayne. 

Now, he’s thinking about taking up the cowl. He had dreamed about being a hero, back when he was still waiting for someone to save him.

He saved himself by wearing a mask for so long he became it.

Now’s his chance to make it real. 

.

No one’s looking out for the kids everybody’s forgotten about. 

So John takes a deep breath and goes to work.


	3. would he have loved you and not let you down?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: would he have loved you and not let you down?  
> Disclaimer: not my character; title from Dido   
> Warnings: … shades of Jason Todd.   
> Pairings: none  
> Rating: PG  
> Wordcount: 465  
> Point of view: third

John Blake is a good man.

Robin isn’t.

Batman doesn’t use guns.

Robin does.

… John Blake died on a bridge, when men following orders blew a last chance all to hell. 

Robin rose from his ashes, ascendant, as Batman died.

.

Bane’s rhetoric is madness, and merely a way to the pass the time, to offer hope to a lost city, all the better to twist the knife.

John Blake is angry about it, defiant, doing his best to protect what he can and bring down Bane’s army. Bring down Bane, if he can. 

But Robin… John Blake knows that Robin would’ve joined up with Bane the first chance he got. 

.

John Blake pulled on a mask, a long time ago. John Blake can be angry, but it’s a safe anger. It’s anger at people he can see, people he can fight – anger for a city being held hostage, for people dying in the streets. 

Robin had been furious at life itself, at the world, at everyone and everything. Robin’s fury would’ve swallowed him whole. Robin’s fury woud’ve made him stupid, would’ve gotten him killed.

So John Blake pulled on the mask and locked Robin away, because John Blake is a survivor.

.

John Blake is a good cop. John Blake is Commissioner Gordon’s protégé. John Blake tried leading people to safety, when the world was falling down around their ears and a madman almost succeeded in blowing them skyhigh. 

John Blake died on that bridge, and no one noticed.

.

His dreams, the first night after Gotham was saved, were full of screams and blood and gunpowder. Mushroom clouds and red snow and kneeling before a gaping gun barrel. 

He had nightmares he hadn’t had since he was a child, and all new ones. 

He wondered if this was how it felt to be a dead man. 

And then he let the mask go.

.

Robin takes to the streets, prepared to do whatever necessary to save his godforsaken city. He’d been born on these streets, ran them as a child, _survived_.

He has so much anger. And he finally has an outlet. 

Good men have to restrain themselves. Good men have to follow rules and obey laws. 

Batman was _good_.

… look where it got him.

.

John Blake would’ve happily been Batman’s sidekick.

But Batman’s gone and only Robin is left. 

.

There’s a lot of work to be done, but he’s not afraid of hard work. He’s not afraid of anything anymore. 

He survived the city falling down, and he’ll survive picking it back up, and he’ll use guns, if he has to. 

If Batman doesn’t like it… well, then he can drag his ass back here and take back the cowl. 

But until then. 

Until then, this city is Robin’s, and he’s doing things his way.


End file.
